ALS (A+) Helpful Hints & Tips

1) If you try to log in and the computer says you're already logged in, you need to log in as the administrator for the campus (or as any other teacher on the campus - if you know his or her password). Once you're logged in (to A+, NOT ASSESS), Press F3, click OK, and scroll down until you see your name. Double-click the name to manually log that user out. You can do this if a student can't log in to ASSESS also, but you have to unlock the user from A+.

2) Sometimes computers have strange little glitches - as the students are taking their ASSESS test, an error message will pop up as the student tries to log out of the test. Click IGNORE and exit the test. The student should log back in at that time. Unfortunately, when this happens, all answers the student recorded during that login will be lost. If a computer or the system seems to be doing this frequently (as it does sometimes and we don't know why), have the students exit the ASSESS test every 5-10 questions or so and then if an error messages comes up, it only erases the last 5-10 questions. (When a student logs out before finishing a test, the computer "saves" the answers to the questions already answered - these questions will now show up on red screens.)

3) Be sure to always log in to the computer using the login for your school - NOT your individual login. For example, log in with ALSHS for the high school, ALSLDE for Lake Dallas Elementary, etc. The password is always the same as the login and is case sensitive - password in ALL CAPS.

5) A strange glitch that has happened lately is when a student logs in for the first time that day, the software says he or she is not assigned to any classes. To fix this, log into A+ as the teacher of that class, and re-add the student to the class list. All of the student's lessons will be saved like before (and all completed lessons will still have the X on the clipboard). Sometimes this happens during an ASSESS test also and students can be re-added to the class the same way in ASSESS.

6) If a student needs to repeat a test or a lesson, the computer won't let the teacher reassign the test or lesson until the original scores have been erased. To do this, contact your administrator. (Administrator: log in to the system, click "My computer" and then the drive with ALS on it. Click the "APPS" FOLDER then the "Utils" folder (utilities), then click the icon that looks like tools (a wrench and hammer I think). Log in as the administrator, then select "edit assessment scores" or "edit student lessons." Next, choose the teacher in the upper left-hand window, then select the class from the lower left-hand window. Choose the student and then scroll through the window until it shows the student's scores. You can erase them from here if you wish.

7) Another thing you can do with the TOOLS icon is change a student's lessons. If you originally selected "do lessons in order" for the student, and now you want to change it so the student can skip around in lessons, log in to the TOOLS program and edit the assignments. Once you get to the student's lessons, unclick the box that says "complete in order."